


Calcium

by peanootzramano



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Be More Chill - Freeform, Forced, M/M, expensive headphones, farming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2019-10-02 23:40:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17273342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peanootzramano/pseuds/peanootzramano
Summary: "If only Jeremy could see him now. Michael Mell, Middle Borough’s one and only suicidal fuckup, the newly appointed COO of OrganiTech."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is centered around a future!AU in which the characters of Be More Chill have graduated. I haven't mentioned the Squip at any point so it is up to your own interpretation as to whether or not things followed the BMC timeline strictly up until this point. The idea behind this fic is... pretty fucked up so if you're squeamish at all then it might be best to avoid this piece.
> 
> I came up with this fic as a present for my gorgeous girlfriend vanceypants!. Without her none of this would be possible. It is the first piece I have ever completed in chapters so please go easy on me!

Michael absolutely _loathes_ Fridays.

   
This is quite the departure from his awkward adolescence where he would stumble into his daunting classroom with a certain buoyancy to his footsteps, his teeth collapsing against damp plastic straw to draw synthetic blueberry across his tongue, his teeth aching and temples throbbing with the intensity of electric chords pouring into his ears from duct-tape headphones. The melodic current would always indicate an eventful weekend filled with blistered thumbs from petite controllers and a heavy smoke fogging his vision.

   
This was back when his complete and utter lack of remarkability would always prevent him from finding a purpose.

   
This was before he had got himself caught up in the charisma of clinical claws and lodged into a corporate climate. Before his beloved crimson hoodie had given way to a blindingly white lab coat pierced by his name tag. Before his immature palette fit for bubblegum and sherbet had transformed into bitter caffeine as dark as his withering soul.

   
If only Jeremy could see him now. Michael Mell, Middle Borough’s one and only suicidal fuckup, the newly appointed COO of OrganiTech.

   
_If_ . But of course, Jeremy _can’t_ see him now. Not anymore.

   
Not since the day Michael pushed things too far. Sold his finest quality weed to a doped-out jock in return for a razorblade big enough to conquer his veins. Slashed deeper than ever before and found himself vacationing inside a cramped hospital room all because his best friend had the _audacity_ to fall in love. The rotund painkillers he was forced to consume would stick to the back of his throat and turn his brain to fuzz, but he was sure that Jeremy had promised that they’d be okay. They’d come back from this.

   
They still couldn’t look each other directly in the eye the day Jeremy left for a better life in Malibu with his outrageously handsome, outrageously wealthy, outrageously _normal_ boyfriend. How could Michael ever compete with Jake Dillinger, anyway?

   
But that was the old Michael. That was the Michael who had misery dripping feverishly from every pore, toxic and thick. That was the Michael whose spine had been forged into the silhouette of his best friend because he couldn’t stand to feel so _alone_. That was the old Michael who truly did not care if he were to perish in his slumber.

   
Some things never change, of course, but at least _now_ he can walk through plastered hallways with his jaw turned upright and all the kinks in his vertebrae fixed.

   
And now he absolutely detests Fridays for what they _truly_ are; a placeholder, a stop-gap which does nothing more than indicate another dreadfully long and entirely uneventful weekend. There is only so many hours that can be filled with Seinfeld reruns and soldier porn.

   
Still, he tries to maintain something of a fictitious high as he waltzes through reception. The neon lights strung overhead burn so bright that an unsettling itch occurs within his bones. He curls his fingertips instinctively around a large Styrofoam cup without visual confirmation, the contents of which are as dark and sour as the prospects of his morning, and nods courteously toward the pretty copper-haired receptionist buzzing around her desk.

   
His heavy footsteps carry him toward secure corridors without missing a beat, holographic key-card pressed in against designated sensor and blinding light scanning his retina for any flaw; the standard procedure for a mundane morning where nothing ever changes-

   
“Mr. Mell?” Connie squeals, her voice a rapid performance of teeth clicking against chipped pink polish. “There’s been a… development this morning.”

   
Michael pauses in place. His throat crackles, and without yet tasting the sweet lubrication of his morning coffee, he struggles to keep the weight of his exasperated sighs locked down. He turns to face the timid receptionist with an eyebrow raised and rolls his wrist impatiently when she fails to answer promptly.

   
“What is it, Connie?”

   
“Oh! Right – um…” She licks her lips uncomfortably, shifting from foot to foot and trying to keep the infatuation from vandalizing her voice. “It’s the newest specimen. She’s – uh, I mean. She’s _different_.”

   
“Different how? Is she being difficult?”

   
“Not exact-“

   
“Then I see no problem. We can counteract any resistance with an extra dosage of hormones. I hardly see the problem.”

   
Boredom fizzes dully within the structure of Michael’s mind, his nails rapping impatiently over autographed cup.

   
“Why don’t you leave her to me, Needy? I’ll take care of her.”

   
The use of such an affectionate nickname is almost enough to distract Connie from her energetic thoughts. Almost. Instead of voluptuous cartoon hearts and a never-ending carousel her thoughts are plagued by logistics and uncertainty and compromise.

It is the liquorice of Michael’s eyes alone which have her handing over a large file without any further contemplation.

   
“She’s in room 302, sir. But please be careful. She’s… feisty.”  
  


 Michael simply chuckles, his teeth collapsing on thin plastic. “Thank you. I promise I’ll be on the lookout for any unauthorized sass.”  
  


 His tongue clicks in place, an unusual habit picked up many eons ago, and were he to pay close attention he would have witnessed Connie’s heart thundering against her fragile chest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He’s dragging his ankles. A little askew. A little awkward. Going through the motions because it is all he has come to know."

It doesn’t matter how many times he has continuously shuffled over clinical tile - the smell of bleach and titanium never fails to make Michael’s stomach  _ flip _ . It’s just all too mechanical. Too antiseptic and clean. Every day he does the same dance, toeing over loose grouting and eyeballing an overwhelmingly bright poster announcing the efficiency of OrganiTech, and every day his footsteps seem to linger.

 

He’s dragging his ankles. A little askew. A little awkward. Going through the motions because it is all he has come to know. He swipes his card against the access panel of Room 302 without looking and without  _ feeling _ .

 

The sound of large, animated machinery and scraping gears falls on Michael’s ears with morbid familiarity. Air puffs through the taut plastic tubing which spills across the floor like venomous serpents; their tongues tangled into the vast kinetic pumps which undulate against bruised flesh in time with rapid-fire breaths. It’s organized chaos. Recognized routine.

 

“Good evening,” Michael sighs without adequate heat to his tone. “Welcome to OrganiTech. I understand that you have some reservations about our program?”

 

He can just barely hear the terrified  _ gargle _ of his patient squealing erratically from underneath moulded plastic; oxygen dispersing amidst contaminated breaths. Punctured rivets rattle within their rusted sockets from weakened arms spasming against their restraints keeping them helplessly suspended from the ceiling. The fragile green needle of their wired-in ECG machine bounces on an atrocious rhythm, a lightning bolt of unfathomable energy just  _ begging _ to be counteracted by medicinal oestrogen.

 

The collision of sounds is enough to warp Michael’s features, a thunderous headache building within the pull of his temples. Gravel crunching atop plastered bone. He curls his tongue around an invisible disc of aspirin and pictures the sensation of it fizzing away on his tongue; a sedative loosening the bolts on his most shameless parts, the parts he longs to keep hidden.

 

Buried within the junctures of his mind lie the remnants of a long-forgotten script which he wrenches forward, pinching against the bridge of his nose as he prepares a list of conditioned technicalities.

 

“There is no need to panic, Ma’am. I can assure you that our methods of retrieval are virtually pain-free.”

 

His thumb dances repeatedly against the top of his pen in hopes of drowning out those wet, strangled screams ricocheting from within resilient tubing. He can  _ hear _ the texture of feral goosebumps breaking out across suctioned skin and it makes his own epidermis  _ crawl _ . Most of his patients dissolve in response to the less-than-charismatic sales pitch – but not this one.

 

“Miss, I have to insist that you calm down.”

 

Michael’s teeth are sharp crescents where they dig into the edge of his cup, biting down until his jawline aches in disapproval; the most undervalued method of retrieving morphine – a reminder that he is still very much  _ alive _ .

 

He keeps his back toward his patient, his shoulders solid but chin wobbling with the weight of keeping himself tethered together. This is always the hardest part. Emotion situated thick and heavy within the entrapment of his lungs. He is certain that if he does not make visual contact with poor massacred flesh and suctioned skin then he cannot take ownership of the blame. Ignorance can indeed be bliss.

 

But  _ oh _ how that clotted screaming plays about the finer mechanisms of his system, manipulates the (well documented) chemical imbalance within his brain and touches on an innermost inadequacy which may never truly be whittled from his bones.

 

Seasons may change and so does stature. But deep down, Michael is that same broken little gay boy desperate for approval.

 

“Let me just… consult your chart, okay?” He stutters, heavy asthmatic breaths fluttering throughout poached lungs. The disgraceful tug of metallic rumbling against twisted wrists ringing in perfect tandem with his elevated heartbeat.  “Perhaps you need an increase of medication. Just to help put you at ease.”

 

His hands tremble as he grabs at the manila folder strewn somewhere across cluttered desk. Tucking his thumb between creased pages, his blurry vision glosses across an abundance of decorated language and familiar declarations - all the insignificant details. Duration. Quantity. Finances. Liability. All consent signed away on the dotted line-

 

Or it would be. If there were any signature present at all.

 

Michael’s blood runs  _ cold _ in an instant. There’s a toxic rush congealing between his narrow veins and panic crimping his vision along his corneas. The yellow-tongued demons which inhabit his subconscious jolt straight toward his stomach. He can feel them  _ slithering _ from within and it makes him feel fucking  _ sick _ .

 

Michael slaps the cover on the file shut as though to keep all those secrets trapped within. Electrical current whips across his dark ankles – panic, hot and cursive.

 

This isn’t supposed to happen. This is  _ never _ supposed to fucking happen!

 

“M-Miss, I think there has been a terrible mistake!”

 

His fingers scrape through the thickened bramble of his hair, a nervous habit designed to dampen his inflated lungs. He spins in place and peers through misty eyes at the poor girl held in place by gargantuan machinery.

 

And  _ familiarity _ strikes against his pulse with the unbridled force of Mjolnir.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hysteria sets in almost immediately; the sight of jewelled lips falling slack as Rich’s entire resolve dilutes at once. Without the benefit of ambiguous chemicals pumped throughout his veins he has been left completely anesthetized.

Michael would recognize those eyes  _ anywhere _ .

 

So impossibly deep and hauntingly beautiful, a fascinating concoction of jade and chestnut and the alluring flame of heterochromia. How they had looked down upon Michael with utmost  _ disgust _ as he shambled through dusty hallways all hand-sewn patches and reflective attitude. One lingering glare would victimize his awkward, uneven footsteps and inability to speak concisely beyond ill-advised comebacks and obscure music references. Now those all-consuming eyes are spread open in absolute  _ terror _ , teardrops dripping like charcoal on irritated cheeks devoid of colour.

 

Those wicked lips had once spat insults so inconceivably  _ cruel _ that Michael would counteract the bullet-storm with the sensation of rust upon his flesh. He would poke and prod and  _ pierce _ at the contaminated parts of himself until he felt somewhat beautiful again. Sometimes, he was sure that just beyond soft pink lips resided serrated gums, his every decibel laced in acid and magnetized toward Michael’s most vulnerable spots. And now his smirk is wilted, dry and parted just wide enough to unleash a catalogue of petrified pleas into a deaf atmosphere.

 

A person who was once so incandescently bright that, with just the click of his thumb, he set his entire fucking  _ universe _ on fire. He willingly infected his soul with vast cadence, rampant and manic but somehow always in control. And now he’s so goddamn  _ lost _ , tearing holes in his cuticles and ripping at tight cuffs as though trying to clasp at something –  _ anything _ – tangible.

 

Captured by a medieval prison of forged titanium and bulbous silicone, with his tender chest heaving into duel canisters strapped in place across his aching breasts, lies none other than Rich fucking Goranski.

 

Precarious needles prick into the leathered, swollen scars which ripple down his neck and across his torso, shooting him up with a concentrated dosage of hormones designed to ripen his lips and thicken his nipples. Sweetened milk trickles steadily from the glisten of his suctioned breasts and pours through a mapwork of intricate cables and into a large tank in the corner. Filtered, purified and ready for market.

 

It’s all so inhumane. Gratuitous exploitation.

 

And Michael authorized it all.

 

In high-school he was known as a man who whose nostalgia obsession would have him thriving on the spontaneous exploration of vast, fantasy worlds without impact nor consequence. Now he is single-handedly responsible for flicking the switch on sinister dials despite their correlation with corruption. Profiteering off those at their most defenseless.

“Fuck!” Michael wails. His skin is very much  _ alive _ , guilt festering underneath his flesh like bloodthirsty leeches.

 

He lunges toward Rich so  _ swiftly _ that his extremities transform into woven springs, tainted palms prying cloudy oxygen mask from his patient’s dehydrated mouth. The rush of unfiltered air flooding throughout his tattered lungs is enough to get Rich  _ high.  _ Far too weak to elevate his gaze, his head remains slack and gelatinous.

 

“Pl… Please,” He whimpers, his lisp more prevalent than Michael can ever remember hearing throughout their adolescence. “He… Help me.”

 

Michael can no longer depend on his own vocabulary, his words bleached by the scientific spiel pounded into his head by OrganiTech, and as such refrains from making any promises he’ll soon fracture. He plucks against the angular needle sewn into Rich’s throat and dabs frantically at the excess spill pooling along his collarbone. His fist collides with the gargantuan button situated on the top of the machine and anticipates the relief of whizzing cables groaning to a halt and ancient tin scraping and aerated tubes going completely flaccid. He pulls damp canisters from Rich’s discoloured chest and grimaces in absolute horror at the sound of Rich shrieking when his nipples are finally –  _ finally _ – released.

 

“You’re gonna be okay, Rich.” His voice is weathered. Small. “Fuck – fuck, I’m so sorry!”

Rich mumbles weakly in response, felted tongue and wrists  _ cracking _ when Michael finally unbuckles his restraints. Gravity strikes him faster than he anticipates, rotating eyes spinning on a celestial curve before he is suddenly overwhelmed by Michael’s arms. Michael removes his lab coat and wraps it securely around the kaleidoscope of bruises stippled throughout Rich’s emasculated body. His hair is brittle, sharp, glued onto the solidity of his temples from pinpricks of haunted exertion. He  _ shivers _ underneath the sensation of Michael’s careless fingertips massaging vacant patterns across his punctured throat. It’s a shitty distraction – but a distraction nonetheless.

 

Bewildering geometry undulates in front of Rich’s hazy vision, all shapes bleeding together, from the warped silhouette of Michael’s agonized frown to the squareness of his glasses. There is welcomed friction running along both of his arms, pressure from his doctor’s calloused palms, and his universe tilts on its axis as he is slowly rocked back and forth

It’s  _ him _ . After all these years it’s  _ actually fucking him _ . The man who enraptured him so sensationally throughout his puberty that he was absolutely terrified of allowing himself to love him. It’s really him. It’s-

 

“Michael,” Rich coos, his lashes fluttering.

 

It’s a warm tone that Michael does not recognize. Foreign glucose and molten sugar syrup. A stark contrast to the familiarity of feral hornets stolen from chapped lips.

 

And then Rich’s lights go out.

 

Hysteria sets in almost immediately; the sight of jewelled lips falling slack as Rich’s entire resolve dilutes at once. Without the benefit of ambiguous chemicals pumped throughout his veins he has been left completely anesthetized.

 

“Fuck, Rich, I have to get you out of here!”

 

Gathering Rich into his arms is a surprisingly effortless task given the crutch of adrenaline coursing throughout Michael’s veins. His ankles sway underneath his elevation – suggested vertigo and the malevolent guilt which weights on his heart like the barbaric titanium vice Rich was hung from – and it takes him a second to find his footing.

 

The hallway is every bit as emotionless and sterile as it has always been. And yet the wide, feverish smiles which rest on the soulless faces plastered across every blank wall is absolutely  _ petrifying _ . These are the grotesque, warped faces of people who have autographed away their very souls. These are the faces of people who would auction off their spirit for a small snippet of freedom. These are the faces of people who are no longer  _ people _ .

 

And that’s what Michael has become.

 

He toes toward the threshold with a sense of utmost urgency before Connie’s crimson shadow darts just across his field of vision. His breath is a murky perfume agitating asthmatic lungs, gathered oxygen, a rotund knot spiralling within his abdomen. His fingertips sink cautiously against the alcove of his patient’s silken throat and in against his pulse. It flutters away, broad kinetic energy as rampant as his dynamic personality, but he’s so fucking  _ cold _ .

 

Michael presses against the fluorescent button looped against his ear. Connie’s voice is a saccharine purr of cinnamon sweetness, misplaced affection and the development of a crush which will never materialize.

 

“Yes, Mr. Mell?”

 

“C-Connie,” Michael breathes, trying to apply varnish to his disintegrating words. “I need a new coffee. Right now.”

 

There is a sharp intake of puzzled breath. He can hear the sound of her lips smacking together as she pops her mouth in uncertainty.

 

“Um… Didn’t you just have a coffee, sir?”

 

“I finished it already. The patient is just as difficult as you said. Can you please just bring me some caffeine?”

 

The scrape of her chair dancing across the floor is audible, those small kitten heels clicking over the linoleum.

 

“Right away, sir!”

 

Michael can’t move until he is certain Connie has adequately exited the vicinity; until the percussion of his heartbeat becomes the only decipherable sound. The surrounding universe dilutes into shades of white and porcelain and steel as he dashes frantically across the cramped reception and through widened doorway.

 

Crisp autumn air beats down upon the exposure of Rich’s small, damaged body as he trembles numbly within Michael’s embrace. He pinches against the centre of a makeshift robe to keep the clean material held shut and preserve Rich’s modesty. The dry, garnet confetti which vandalize airbrushed asphalt crunch underneath his every footstep. His beloved PT Cruiser is a hideous embellishment of chipped green paint amidst a sea of beige and Michael has never been so fucking grateful for his priority parking.

 

Rich’s battered posture  _ melts _ amidst faded leather as he is placed in the passenger’s seat, belt strapped around his midsection to keep him held in place; a radically different take on suppression – one which is welcomed.

 

The neon lanyard strung around Michael’s neck is a noose. It twists and twists and twists until his larynx has become mutilated. It has strung him skyward and contorted his corpse and turned him into a caricature of all the drones he and Jeremy would mock over haphazard nachos and Donkey Kong.

 

He tears the suffocation from around his throat and tosses it to the ground; his fingertips rougher than his youth and yet they carve away at his cancer with a pinpoint accuracy he had always longed for.

 

His hand coils protectively around Rich’s chilled thigh when Michael enters his vehicle, synthetic vanilla flooding his senses from the peculiarly shaped freshener dangling across chipped mirror (and he’s relieved, he can’t face his ghastly reflection. Torturer.). He slams his foot on the gas and practically moans when his beloved car cuts across the parking lot.

His old ID card  _ cracking _ underneath the impact of his tire.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How could he allowed something like this to happen? Was he so starved for attention and purpose that he allowed desperate people to sacrifice themselves? Just how many petrified ‘patients’ did OrganiTech authorize? How many people were hoisted up like cattle and fucking milked for all that they were worth just to make a quick buck? How many protocols had been ignored?

Michael’s old home still smells every bit as musky as it used to.

 

The rickety old rafters  _ burn _ with the familiar spice of faded marijuana, discoloured plaster fractured from that one Halloween party where Michael had tripped on his jagged cloak and fell head-first into the mantelpiece and forgotten bean bag chairs with their seams stitched together by a clashing fabric. Mismatched candles half-burned scatter across a stack of dated magazines as though their tangy fragrance would somehow counteract the implication of his vice. Back when he was so cautious as to protect a reputation heavily embossed upon the eyes of his tormentors.

 

Even his loveseat feels identical – same cigarette burns and soda stains and loose springs bursting from gaudy ‘Grandma Glam’ fabric. The lumps and bumps rolling across his frazzled nerves provide a surprising amount of relief; the knowledge that somehow, thankfully, he has retained a link to the person he used to be.

 

The person he has to become again.

 

Through the scarlet mist descending slowly across his vision, a tight pressure itching at the backs of his eyes, he finds himself beguiled by the steady rise and fall of Rich’s chest. He sleeps so peacefully, fair lashes crimped on tear-stained cheeks and breath puffing in soft even stutters. He looks so  _ gentle _ . So  _ vulnerable _ . Even after all these years his physique is by no means miniscule – the sandstone bricks and serrated muscle of his posture had always overpowered Michael so effortlessly in their youth – but oh how he  _ drowns _ underneath the baggy sweatpants and woolly Pikachu sweater plucked from Michael’s work bag. Hopefully the fabric is soft enough to soothe against a heavily bruised chest.

 

Nausea grips against his abdomen once again. Somersaulting and vaulting, his insides congealing around fortified blade as his guilt tears through him with the accuracy of a twisted knife. His head feels heavy within his palms. His nail beds slanted and uneven from the chattering of his teeth.

 

How could he allowed something like  _ this _ to happen? Was he so starved for attention and purpose that he allowed desperate people to sacrifice themselves? Just how many petrified ‘patients’ did OrganiTech authorize? How many people were hoisted up like cattle and fucking  _ milked  _ for all that they were worth just to make a quick buck? How many protocols had been ignored?

 

And how many lives had been destroyed due to Michael’s ignorance?

 

“Michael?” Rich’s voice is uneven and sharp, a cluster of pebbles crunching around within his throat from a strained larynx. Tangled tubes and insulated silicone may have smothered his decibels, but those screams were dire.

 

His arms feel inconceivably heavy, invisible kilograms strapped around amethyst wrists, as he rubs circles across his strained eyes. The tips of his fingers feel creased and numb from being suspended in the air for so  _ long _ . Every rushed breath brings forth a stab of pain in his brutalized chest, his nipples swollen and pierced by an abundance of sadistic little tubes which just took and took and took from him until-

 

“Rich! Fuck, are you okay?”

 

Until Michael Mell had rescued him.

 

Michael toes across the carpet with a sense of absolute  _ urgency _ , summoning an energy he shouldn’t have retained given the situation, and brushes his fingertips along the crease of Rich’s cheekbones to scan for any external blemish. The soft, supple ripeness of his angled mouth and wide eyes cause a commotion within Rich – an ignited match grating across his ribcage and he is suddenly  _ very _ aware of how unbelievably pretty Michael is. He has barely changed since high school, so mesmerizing that his awkward imbalanced brain could do nothing more than work to destroy the things he secretly valued most.

 

“Wow,” Rich breathes. “You look even better than you used to. I didn’t even think that was possible.”

 

Michael’s eyebrow twitches against his forehead. From his (admittedly repressed) memories of Middle Borough, Rich never thought of him as anything other than a nuisance; a smear on his otherwise perfect day. And although the majority of his hormone-induced fantasies revolved around the sensation of that giddy little tongue in his mouth and his hands moving across the grain of his spine, they were simply unattainable. There are no movies in which the handsome, funny, popular kid falls in love with the designated loser.

 

Maybe Jeremy could defy the status quo, but hot guys with nice thighs just weren’t in the cards for him.

 

Especially now.

 

“Thank you. You look really really good too.”

 

Michael’s hands flutter impishly along the length of Rich’s shoulder, a nervous frantic sort of energy to match the distracted turn of his chin tilted downward. Guilt flickers across his vision and dampens his lashes and Rich’s stomach flips inward. Even after all these years he would do  _ anything _ to kiss the angst from those ruby red lips.

 

His breath comes in rapid, blunt wisps. “It’s  _ really _ good to see you, Michael.”

 

There is such hopeless sincerity to those transparent words that Michael can hardly keep himself together. He presses his tongue toward the roof of his mouth in an attempt to dampen the obnoxious laugh which tickles beyond his lips.

 

And then he’s crying.

 

The tears traverse like treacle across his cheeks, cloying and sticky and utterly contaminated in the filth of what he has done. His forehead falls to rest against the smaller man’s temples and he feels so incredibly  _ petite _ held together by Michael’s arms. He is bruise and blemish and beauty that could have been so easily been snuffed had Michael not sharpened his senses.

 

“Rich, I’m so sorry,” He whimpers, his hand resting like lead across Rich’s thigh. “This is all my fault. I… I don’t know what happened to me. What I’ve become.”

 

Taut, mahogany ringlets fall like springs against Rich’s wandering fingertips, clipped nails carving precious semi-circles against the base of a bronzed neck. Phantom pains electrify through lavender veins as his mind returns to the sensation of medieval machinery twisting him up for his perfect preservation. His chest absolutely fucking  _ kills _ .

 

“Why are you sorry? You didn’t do that shit to me. You didn’t – you know – like… string me up or put me on show. You actually helped me.” Rich pauses, his tongue darting swiftly across the seam of his lips. “After everything I put you through in high school, you helped me.”

 

Michael laughs again, dissolving his tears on the edge of his thumb. “I think being shoved into a locker once or twice and being treated as a milk machine are two completely different things.”

 

“Eh. You say potato – I say French fries!”

 

Rich curls his fingers that bit closer to Michael’s scalp, watching the way his lashes flutter across damp cheeks and the part of his lips as he  _ sighs _ .

 

“I always used to fantasize about this, you know.”

 

Michael’s lips coil around the flicker of an utterly confused – if highly amused – grin; his breath braiding to a flourish.

 

“Not about becoming Clarabelle, you doof!” Rich laughs, burrowing himself that bit closer into the sanctuary of Michael’s arms. “No, I mean like… about you rescuing me. Have you turn me from that dark, misunderstood fuckboy into the hero of the play.”

 

“I really don’t think I’m capable of rescuing anybody, Rich.”

 

“That’s not true! You saved me, after all!” The tip of his nose flows seamlessly underneath Michael’s rotund jawline. His skin smells of lavender soap and nutmeg from his cologne and it’s entirely intoxicating. “I guess you know my big secret now, though. The reason why I couldn’t ask you out in High School.”

 

Thick fingertips dance deftly across the swell of Rich’s wobbling thigh and fall to rest against his hip to keep him held perfectly in place. Through hallways paved in ghastly metal and inappropriate verbiage depicting a certain school spirit which was never prevalent in any of the lost souls trapped there, Michael was fading. He could never have imagined being this close to someone so incredibly  _ handsome _ . Someone so out of his league. Even now things feel counterbalanced – victim snuggling up to his assailant.

 

“What secret?”

 

“That I’m, you know…” A terrible paranoia slips through his chest akin to a hot knife through butter. “That I’m not a dude?”

 

Michael simply stares.  “But… you are a dude?”

 

“No I’m not. You saw me back there-“

 

“You think having a cracking pair of tits makes you any less of a dude?”

 

Rich curls his arms close to his tender chest with a small, barely-detectable wince, his eyes sparkling it utmost disbelief as he rolls Michael’s words throughout his head.

 

Michael pinches his lower lip between his teeth. “Uh… s-sorry, that was in poor taste-“

 

Rich’s laughter is enigmatic and vibrant. It burst from his lips in an infectious spill of energy and infamous charisma and with the way he kicks his limbs in absolute bliss there is simply  _ no way _ Michael can do anything but join in. Fuchsia flame stipples prettily over Rich’s plump cheeks and his teeth sparkle and Michael’s heart skips a gigantic beat at the sight. For just a fleeting moment their noses brush intimately against one and other as his guilt wicks from sterile bones because anyone who can invoke such a glorious noise from Rich Goranski has to be a decent person, right?

 

“Fuck, dude. You’re every bit as hilarious as I remember!” Rich sighs, his fingertips brushing along Michael’s damp cheeks. He swipes away a rather large droplet caught up amidst tangled lashes – cleanses him from the sadness which plagues his insides. “Thank you for saving me, dude. I really don’t know what I would’ve done if… if….”

 

Salt saturates his vision, his lower lip trembling across a depthless chorus.

 

“Shh, hey. Don’t even worry about it.” Michel’s lips are a gentle balm across shredded nerves and his words a soothing honey. “The hormones will faze out and your chest will heal in no time. You’re going to be okay.”

 

Rich’s legs curl protectively around Michael’s lap as warm lips breeze over his temples. He thumbs concentric circles over the stripe of bone tipping underneath tear-stained tee and exhales peacefully. Truthfully, he longs to bury himself within amber skin where the toxicity of his past can no longer reach him. He could become a piece of Michael himself - handsome, clever, hilarious Michael with a golden heart capable of misplaced forgiveness.

 

Michael who wears his shame like a veil.

 

“I’m just so sorry it had to come to  _ this _ for me to come to my senses.”

 

“It doesn’t matter how long it took, Mikey. What matters is that you  _ did _ come to your senses. Besides, if you weren’t there tonight, they would’ve…”

 

Damp decibels drip across a dense tongue; horrified stutter. Michael is quick to hush Rich with the pluck of his thumb over crimson pout.

 

“Shh, shh. Okay – you’re right. It’s a good thing I was there.” Rocking Rich slowly to the tune of an elevated heartbeat –  _ pump pump pump _ – Michael rests his chin atop the misalignment of scarlet straining slick brown locks. “Maybe… Maybe now I can stop it. All of it.”

 

“Stop what?”

 

“Just… everything,” Michael shrugs, running a distracted fingertip along the sliver of scarred flesh protruding between zipper-torn thread. “OrganiTech. I could go after the entire fucking company. If the public knew how they were really treating these ‘volunteers’ then maybe – maybe, we can get it shut down for good?”

 

There is such resilience to Michael’s vocabulary that Rich can feel the fissures in his chest beginning to cauterize. He had always caught Michael spilling sincerity into his frenzied lunchtime conversations with Jeremy Heere, lips crooked against a looped straw buried inside some bizarre 90s soda and thumbs dancing along the buttons of his sticker-smothered console without retreating his gaze from his best friend’s stuttering mouth. Even casual discussions about the prowess of some unknown character (what the fuck is a King Deedeedee?) would invoke a sense of empowerment; it was why Rich would throw him into heaped trash cans to somehow restore an imbalance of power.

 

Michael has always had a way with words and right now, his hopeful vocabulary is the only sustainable religion Rich can immerse himself within.

 

“You really think that’ll work?”

 

“Absolutely!” Michael croons, a spark glinting within tired eyes. He can feel his fingertips wriggling against something  _ tangible _ , an honest to god  _ purpose _ which he had been so deprived of after his universe had bled as severely as his wrists. “I… I really think I can do this, Rich.”

 

“Then you have my support. I’ll testify to absolutely anything you need, bro.”

 

“Rich,” He sighs, breath brushing over the spill of feathered lashes. “You don’t have to put yourself through that again. You’ve already been through so much.”

 

“I know. And I want to stop it from happening to anyone else. So use me, okay?”

 

An iron-clad testimony substantiated by the grotesque punctures stippled throughout Rich’s sensitive torso would be enough to liquify every shadowed juncture of OrganiTech’s villainous practises. They would fold in an instant, utterly corrode against an irrecoverable PR disaster, the world knowing of their exploitative strain. Lives would be saved, souls medicated with a view to  _ healing _ . He could atone for everything he has done for those sadistic bastards.

 

And most importantly – he could put Rich back together again.

 

“Shit, okay. Okay! Then let’s get those fucke-“

 

“One condition. You can have my help if you do one thing for me.”

 

“Anything! Absolutely anything.” Michael says in earnest.

 

Rich moves with a graceful fluidity over Michael’s hips, slinging a leg on either side of his wobbling knees and settling back to take in his mesmerizing features. His lips part into a saccharine ringlet – a juncture just begging to be explored by the weave of a frisky tongue. His thumb situates beneath structured jawline and keeps their gazes tightly locked. He is a vision of fractured capillaries and satin skin and plump coffee-stained lips. An absolutely filthy fucking mess.

 

“Just let me show you how grateful I am for what you did for me.”

 

And Rich can’t wait to get his hands dirty.

 


End file.
